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Lyle Craver
03-31-2013, 04:03 PM
All Governors and Officers with reports please post here

Kevin Pacey
04-01-2013, 04:59 PM
I have a quite brief report to make this quarter, as former President Michael von Keitz requested early on that I wait to see whether the CFC reaches a deal for a chess server - if the CFC does then I could go ahead and advertise the LTIP program (that was slightly changed at the 2013 January online quarterly meeting), plus mention that there was a new CFC chess server (if we get one). Thus I would be able to advertise more than just one thing (the LTIP Program and a CFC server) at the same time by emails, private messages and Canadian chess message boards on behalf of the CFC, i.e. to clubs, organizers and others, in my role as a non-CFC officer Clubs Administrator volunteer.

CFC Clubs Administrator Kevin Pacey
Ottawa

Bob Armstrong
04-02-2013, 02:33 AM
2013 Governors’ Spring On-line Meeting ( April )

Item 6a –Public Relations Coordinator Report ( Non-Executive Officer ) - Bob Armstrong

Bylaw 3 of the CFC Handbook, under Duties of Officers in Section 8C, gives the mandate of the Public Relations Coordinator position ( created at the 2010 AGM ) as:

“ 8C. The Public Relations Coordinator will be responsible for promoting the image of the CFC and for promoting chess generally to the public. As such the Public Relations Coordinator will, among other things:

- deal with mainstream media to promote significant chess news, such as Canadian Chess Champions, a new Canadian GM, major tournaments like the Can. Closed, Canadian Open, Can. Women’s Closed, CYCC, etc., the various benefits accruing from playing chess and other positive aspects of the chess culture. “

Here is the update on activity since the 2013 Winter Meeting ( January/13 ):

1. “ News “ Items ( on the CFC Website Homepage under “ Latest News “[copies on the CFC “ News “ Discussion Forum, Facebook, and Twitter ] ) – Posted 53 news items ( from January 1 to and including March 31/12 – average of more than 4 news posts per week; this is double the Oct – Dec./12 period).

2. Press Releases: one issued – on Can. GM Eric Hansen winning the 2012 Player of the Year award – as far as I know, we got no media response.

3. Media Contacts: none this past 3 months

4. Discussion Boards: posted numbers of times on the members’ CFC Chess Chat Forum, and the CMA ChessTalk, answering CFC issues raised.

5. New Media Links: I have been provided by members with media links across the country, and will slowly be integrating them into the CFC Media E-mail Groups as time permits.

6. CFC Facebook Non-Profit Corporation Page: have continued incremental building of the site - grew from 171 “ Likes “ at Dec. 31/12 to 214 as of March 31. This is double the increase we had in the last three months of 2012. It seems more Facebooker’s are finding our CFC FB page. The majority of “ Likes “ are not CFC tournament players, and many are not CFC members. We are reaching out in the social media to the non-CFC chess-playing public. We also have some players from other countries as “ Likes “, who now follow Canadian chess.

Bob Armstrong, CFC Public Relations Coordinator

Paul Leblanc
04-02-2013, 06:53 PM
It has been relatively peaceful on the rating front this quarter. I am grateful for that.
The March quarterly data shows:
- the median rating of the top 100 players active in the past 36 months is 2348. This figure has been in a range from 2340 to 2360 since late 2009;
- the average rating of players rated over 1200 active in the past 12 months is 1750. Since late 2009 this figure has been in a range from 1730 to 1750;
- the average rating of players rated over 1200 active in the past 36 months is 1710. Since late 2009 this figure has been in a range from 1650 to 1710;
- the average rating of all players active in the past 12 months is 1440. This figure continues to climb and will likely settle in a couple of hundred points below the average of all players over 1200. It is climbing as a result of measures to rectify under-rated juniors (many junior games moved to Active rating, bonus point formula)
- the average rating of all players active in the past 36 months is 1171. Same factors as above except that many of these players were severely under-rated juniors who have left the system

I have observed anecdotally that fewer players are earning 100+ bonus points in a single event as under-rated players come into line with their actual playing strength

I continued some dialogue with people on issues such as rating floors, CFC vs FIDE rating differences and rating of CYCC qualifying events. The latter issue is in the hands of the CFC Junior Co-ordinator.

Pierre Dénommée
04-02-2013, 11:51 PM
The Canadian Zonal Rules are in Gross violation with FIDE rules for Zonal. Officially, FIDE owns the Zonal and sets its rules. We are expected to follow them. Actually, the Canadian Zonal is also used as a The Canadian Championship. This is in no way mandatory. The CFC controls the rules for the Canadian Championship. So we could wish to separate those two events. Curling has sent to the Olympics athletes who never were Canadian Champion. Those players won the gold medal. Separating the qualification from the Canadian Championship is a possible option that would even give us more chances for norms.

In the attached file, modifications in red are required to comply with the FIDE Zonal rules an modification in yellow are required to comply with other sections of the Handbook. We should discuss those changes at the AGM, this is not an urgent matter.

I have devised a program to convert the FIDE rating list in xml format to an SQL file. The SQL file can be used to create the FRL in any SQL compliant database. I have created the FIDE database in MariaDB. It can be used to perform all kind of statistical analysis as well as finding a list of players to invite to norms tournaments. It is easy to get a list of titled players above a certain rating by country, thus making it easy to find players to invite. There are multiple instances of duplicated FIDE ID in the FIDE database. I have renumbered them with ID starting at 1 and they are the only FIDE ID less then 300 in the database.

The Australian Chess Federation has noticed that Swiss Manager does not always makes correct pairings and has approved Vega for ACF use. http://www.chesschat.org/showthread.php?t=14369 and http://www.chesschat.org/showthread.php?t=14437 . Because Vega has been endorsed by FIDE in 2012 for Dutch pairings, it is the only program that complies with the latest changes approved at the 2012 AGM, It is expected that the other programs will adapt. Here is the FIDE schedule for software improvement.

[1] the programmers of all endorsed programs shall provide the Commission with the latest version of their programs

[2] the programs will be checked by SPP representatives whether they fulfill the Swiss Rules as they are now

[3] until July 1st 2013 the programmers will be informed about the findings and what they possibly have to do in order to adapt their programs to the current Swiss Rules;

[4] the situation of all the endorsed programs will be reported to the Congress 2013

[5] the necessary upgrades of the programs shall be performed before May 31st 2014

[6] the Congress 2014 will confirm the endorsement for the programs that are following the current Swiss Rules

[7] programs that on May 31st 2014 will not meet the requirements or the programmers of which at any time do not cooperate in this process will lose their endorsement

By the time of the 2013 Canadian Open, SwissManager will still be endorsed but we should keep an eye on the evolution of this issue. Because FIDE now has an automated pairings checker, we should be careful with the pairings.